Kathleen Oliver

Prepared for the Next Step

Kathleen Oliver, a recent graduate of Cape Breton University, will soon be starting the next chapter of her life in a new place, at a new institution. These changes to Kathleen’s life are sure to bring a variety of new and exciting experiences, opportunities, and challenges. Thankfully, CBU has prepared Kathleen to take on her upcoming academic year, and the years to come.

In May, Kathleen obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with a Major in Psychology with honours. “In high school, I was interested in science and also the human mind, so when I realized that the two go hand in hand, I knew the BSc Psychology program was right for me,” she says.

After she set her mind on a degree, Kathleen, from New Waterford, N.S., had to set her mind on a school, which ended up being CBU. “The combination of the close proximity to home and all the positive comments I heard about CBU over the years just couldn’t be beat for me, “she explains. “CBU was the obvious choice when deciding where to go for my undergraduate degree.”

Staying close to home proved to pay off for Kathleen, who has spent the last four years at CBU being busy with both academic and extra-curricular activities. “My favourite part about being a student at CBU was that I was able to get involved with different projects more easily than I would have at a larger institution,” says Kathleen. “CBU is a great university to attend if one wants to meet people easily and build upon their curriculum vitae at the same time.” During her time at CBU, Kathleen served as Senior Vice-President of the CBU Psychology Society, and became involved in her community by becoming a member of the Board of Directors for MA’s Kitchen in New Waterford.

Kathleen has certainly stayed active during her time at CBU, but will soon be trading in the small town of New Waterford for the busy streets of Hamilton, Ontario, as she ventures west to attend McMaster University to obtain her Master of Science in Psychology with a specialization in cognition and perception. While she is studying in Ontario, she will do research in psycholinguistics, an area not foreign to her.

To prepare herself for the skills and knowledge needed to complete a master’s program, Kathleen became involved as a research assistant in Dr. Erin Robertson’s Language Lab since September. The topic of her research during this project was The Roles of Grammaticality, Noun, Type, Speech Perception and Short Term Memory, on Subject Verb Agreement Comprehension within School-Aged Children. “I test children from grades one to four within the Cape Breton Victoria Regional School Board as my participants to find out which factors affect spoken sentence comprehension,” she explains. Kathleen will continue this research into master’s degree.

“I would definitely recommend research studies for any student who plans on going to graduate school,” says Kathleen. “The respected faculty is there to help you every step of the way and it can lead to many great opportunities. Being involved in research enabled me to gain responsibility and time management skills which are essential for graduate school preparation. I am confident that being involved in research studies at CBU has given me the tools I need to become a graduate student at McMaster University. “